


Stars and Starfish

by sappho_42



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Ancient Roman Religion & Lore, The Aeneid - Virgil, The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Absent Parents, Divine Parents, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Mortality, Parent-Child Relationship, Protective Parents, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29684967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sappho_42/pseuds/sappho_42
Summary: The relationship between Aeneas and his mother over time.
Relationships: Aeneas & Aphrodite (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Aeneas & Ascanius
Kudos: 5





	Stars and Starfish

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Étoiles et étoiles de mer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159404) by [Amber_Brush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Brush/pseuds/Amber_Brush). 



The first memory Aeneas had of his mother was of her gentle face turned towards him, a great smile on her lips. She took his hand, at the time small and pudgy, and sang to him-- a lullaby of stars and of starfish, of doves and of seashells. His eyelids closed slowly to the rhythm of her tender melody, and he remembered having been held and carried with infinite care. He must have been very young, though, because all the rest was blurry.

Then another memory, four years later. He had wanted to climb a fig tree on Mount Ida, but one of the branches broke and he fell. His knee was completely skinned. Sitting amongst the broken branches, his fists tight, his eyes brimming with tears, he barely noticed Aphrodite sweep him away into her arms. Safe, relieved, he fastened his little arms around her neck and leaned into her, pleased. His beloved mother. She smelled of rose oil and incense. Numbed, Aeneas dozed a little. When he woke up, she had gone, even if some trinkets-- petals, pretty things-- evidenced her presence.

He picked up one of the seashells he’d gathered and made a necklace out of it. He would reply to smirks that it was his mother's symbol-- although he found himself silent when asked where she was, then. She was never a constant presence in his life. Nonetheless, he remembers having proudly declared he was her son, and standing up to those who mocked him at military school-- now all mysteriously dead of smallpox. Once, when he was a teenager, she came to see him train. After the fight, she had hugged him tightly.

“You, too, are warlike,” she had concluded, her pride shining in her voice, her head on his shoulder. “But you are less bloodthirsty than Eryx, Phobos, or Deimos. You are magnanimous.” He wasn’t sure what the word meant, but his heart swelled with pride. When he said “My mama is the most beautiful one of all”, he was right.

He fixed another shell to his armor as a rallying sign, a sign of glory. No matter how hard he searched his memory, he couldn’t remember any other episodes in his young life in which his mother had come. Only that lullaby from when he was a baby, the melody of which remained engraved in him; and that moment of worry for his fall, however benign. That was it. And it was very little.

Sometimes, however, he felt that Aphrodite was there. In the reflections of the sea, in the corners of a young girl’s smile, in the flight of a dove. He almost felt her hand in his when he asked Creusa to dance with him for the first time. Perhaps she was there at his wedding, too. At the birth of his son Ascanius, he was certain that the old beggar woman who had blessed the child and held him so long in her gnarled arms was in fact her, disguised; unrecognizable.

Afterwards, just as he’d dreamed, he became a general in the Trojan army. No prophecy announced his death-- even if he didn’t quite understand what he had heard about “carrying the torch of Troy and the line of the Dardanians out of the walls of the city”. Aphrodite therefore kept her silence, fear in her stomach. She knew that he would survive the war, and that reassured her somewhat.

That didn’t stop her from worrying terribly.

One day, he found himself facing the terrible Diomedes. Like two terrible lions, they turned to face each other, equally formidable. But the Achaean had the force of Athena with him. It showed in his feverish eyes, in the unspeakable aura that enveloped him, in the extraordinary power that emanated from his gestures; it showed, too, in the carnage he left in his wake.

For the first time, the warrior felt a shiver of fear invade him.

It was not thanks to his brazen sword, his steel spear, nor an iron-tipped arrow that Diomedes managed to hurt him; no, it was with a vulgar rock, pulled from the ground, that he attacked him. He wounded him grievously in the thigh. Aeneas fell to his knees, one hand supporting him on the ground, a dark veil of pain over his eyes. Seeing the world darken around him, he believed his last hour had come, despite the claims of the Fates.

That’s when his mother, always on alert, suddenly appeared. She embraced him in her loving arms and enveloped him in the folds of her purple-embroidered peplos. As she hugged him, he felt immediately protected, secure, plunged into an ocean of love and tenderness. Then she took her flight, and carried him far from the fierce fighting. He felt her hand tenderly brush his long hair, loosened in battle and covered in dust. She kissed his forehead too, delicately.

Mortified, Aeneas wanted to protest, refuse her extraordinary help-- however vital it was at the moment when he was grievously injured. “Mother, put me down, I feel ridiculous,” he managed to whine. She put his finger to his lips, with an infantilizing “shhhhh”. In his mother’s eyes, he became that little boy of four years old again, who skinned his knee climbing trees. He hoped that she wasn’t about to start telling that story as well. 

But they weren’t finished yet. As if from nowhere, the spear of the brazen and tenacious Diomedes sprang from the tumult, and pierced his mother's wrist. Surprised, she screamed in pain and let go of him. Aeneas didn’t hold it against her: the ichor flowed freely, subtle yet heady. It was the first time he’d seen a god hurt by a banal human.

Then the fog dissipated, and he discerned, behind the ferocious Achaean, his mother’s greatest rival. It was Athena who had directed the fatal blow, and she openly laughed at their misfortune. She held the shoulder of her favorite, who was agonizing them with insults-- especially Aphrodite, of course. She fled, ashamed, as her son lay in the chaos and the din of battle.

So his uncle Apollo came to rescue him from the retribution of his enemies. He found him by his shield of silver and encamped, crouching next to him. As ferocious as the wolf who defends her pups, he pushed back with both hands the dreadful Diomedes, who was made enraged and reckless by the grey-eyed goddess. Aeneas, who was almost bathed in unconsciousness, finally heard him roar with a terrible voice. He couldn’t distinguish the words, but the Greek was scared, retreated, and left him in peace.

So the archer-god, his twin sister, and his mother Leto brought him to Pergamos, where they took care of him and cured him thanks to the dictamnus, which heals every human wound. And once back in combat, he distinguished himself valiantly by many great deeds. He wept bitterly for Hector, but tried to replace him as his equal, and be worthy to succeed him. It was the main bulwark of his people.

But Troy ends with a fall, and then it was time to accomplish the prophecy that talked of keeping the fire of the Dardanians alive. Just like when he was a child, Aeneas again felt the goodwill of his mother, in the mercy of the sea waves, in the flame of Dido. Sometimes he saw her again more directly, but blamed her for not appearing immediately.

As always, Aphrodite hid herself behind glamours and disguises that in other times would have amused him, but now left him hopeless. “Why am I not allowed to hold your hand, to hear you and to answer you without pretense?”

Once, however, she presented herself to her son without the least charade. It was shortly after his arrival in Hesperia, after many journeys. She had a worried look, drawn lines on her face, and held a set of weapons. At the foot of a great oak, where he stood for support, exhausted, she came to present him with a shield, armor, cuirasses, a helmet, a sword, and a spear forged by Hephaestus himself. Without attempting to hide her worry, she hugged him, in a embrace that reminded him so much of the time when she carried him when he was little.

She had probably remembered the cruel lesson of the siege of Troy, however, because she hadn’t intervened in battles-- at least, not in a visible manner. During the fighting at Latium, several javelins missed Aeneas in a manner a bit too extraordinary to not be due to a divine intervention; several sword or arrow wounds healed very quickly and were perfumed with rose; but he had enough modesty not to brag about it. 

Nevertheless, sometimes he regretted not knowing a normal childhood, with a mother who would have held him whenever she wanted, and not only five times in his whole life. A mortal mother, with whom he could collect seashells at the beach and gather flowers, instead of placing them as an offering on the family altar. Not necessarily “the most beautiful”, but a mother who would have been with him, and not vaguely present in the reflections of pearls on young girls’ necklaces.

From time to time, he sang to Ascanius the lullaby that spoke of stars and starfish.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got around to posting this, it’s been sitting with my WIPs for months.
> 
> Merci mille fois to Amber_Brush for letting me translate their beautiful work! I had great fun trying to match the more literary style.


End file.
